A recent study released in South Africa stated that around 75% of local travellers prefer to overnight at friends and family rather than staying in a hotel. This correlates closely with the latest statistics from the US which states that only 33% of US consumers said they would feel safe staying in a hotel. Furthermore, Microsoft has released statistics stating that on March 31, around 2.7 billion meeting minutes were recorded via MS Teams, thus emphasising that people are indeed finding a human connection through video.
The above are just some examples of how the behaviour of markets has changed during the Covid-19 crisis. To what extent habits have changed and for how long, however, remains uncertain. That leaves Airline Revenue Management professionals on shaky ground when it comes to the effective management of airline inventory. Yes, markets will recover and spending will bounce back beyond grocery and household supplies but experts are in agreement that it will definitely not be ‘business as usual’.
Now, more than ever, Airline Revenue Management professionals need to learn what disrupted decision making looks like as they need to quickly adapt to passengers’ short-term needs, while also keeping an eye on long-term strategies.
SKIM’s Habitual-Deliberate Decision Loop model provides a framework for understanding disrupted decision behaviour.
I believe that passengers have spent most of their time on the habitual side of the loop prior to Covid-19. Taking a flight to see a client or to attend a meeting became a habit. The Covid crisis, however, forced people to reconsider their behaviour and pushed them out of their routine. This disruption will lead to passengers moving from a habitual decision-making process to more deliberate decision-making process, i.e. passengers will consider alternatives before jumping on a plane.
This begs the important question: Is your Airline’s Revenue Management System ready to pro-actively managed these changing market behaviours?
Aviator allows the Airline Revenue Management analyst to focus on the things they can control. I guess you can say, Aviator allows the Revenue Management analyst to get back to the basics of Airline Revenue Management, i.e. a good and proper forecast followed by an automated, yet flexible Optimisation process that can be influenced via user-defined business rules.
Let us demonstrate to you how Aviator can assist your airline in managing these changing market behaviours to maximise revenues on every flight.
